LOSING traders - How much money and time have you lost?

Vulcan, great comments about the time it takes to know this stuff; I really needed to hear that after losing a quarter of my account this month ($300k) shorting NDX & RUT. Made $200k my first 4 months of trading IC and thought I had it all figured out, then decided to try directional trading and got my ass kicked. I'm definately going back to "grinding it out" with neutral strategy with directional trades limited to some FOTM black swan on the side I'm worried most about; no pure directional trading for me.

For those that wonder how I could lose 1/4 of my account - here's what I was thinking. The prior months working the condor, I would balance deltas too aggressively and get burnt on whipsaw. This month with the directional trading, I was determined to wait for the market to come back to me; of course, this is the one month it wouldn't come back to me and the losses just kept piling up. Definately learned my lesson about limiting losses!
 
Quote from swiftmike99:

Forex is a scam, you need to sign up with IB and trade equities or futures and start over again.
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Plenty of people make money trading forex (cash and futures). Sorry to hear you don't have the capacity to figure it out.
 
Quote from Hook N. Sinker:

GBP/USD exchange rate chart 30 minute intervals. Daytrader with long position stops loss about 1.48 on 25 March 2010.

<img src=http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=2784181 \img>
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I'm a strictly technical trader now. I used to look at what the economic news was vs expectations, but now I just watch the price bars, because I found that paying attention to the news itself caused me to form an opinion and I'd often trade my opinion instead of trading the crowd's reaction to the news (the price action), and I'd miss beautiful moves because the news didn't warrant it.

The chart you post could be any chart. I think once you learn to trade pure price action, you can trade anything.

This chart contains common patterns and the price action that commonly follows:

First you have a double top/failed breakout which is a low-risk short setup (and it's followed by a decent move down).

Then you have a slightly higher low, a long signal, that would result in a scratch trade or a small loss. If you're a 3-push trader, though, you wouldn't have taken it because it was only the 2nd push down.

Then you have a double bottom, which is a low-risk long setup because it follows the 3rd push down (and this setup is followed by a decent move up).

Then you have a strong push at the end of that up move, but it sells off. The attempt to retest that spike fails, leaving a lower high, excellent short signal (and it's followed by a decent move down).

Then another bottoming process with slightly higher lows, good long signal and sure enough, up it goes.

Lower highs in a down trend, higher lows in an uptrend, double tops, double bottoms, and breakouts in the direction of the trend, are all strong "edges" that increase your odds of making a good profit, and also these setups give you tight and survivable stop zones.
 
Quote from Ghost of Cutten:

You have the perfect strategy. Trade a small account your usual way, then when it blows up, take 25% of your life savings and buy front month out-the-money options betting on a reversal of the move.

If you are the worst trader in the world then by definition you have the strategy to be a good trader just by fading yourself.
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Yeah but if you do George constanza could sue you for infringement on intellectual property.:eek:
 
A little off topic, but I've just started looking at currency futures from a technical standpoint, and wow they retest highs and lows to a pip a lot. You don't see that in stocks or indexes, there's always a range of a few ticks that you have to watch for. But currency comes back to the pip precisely.
 
Quote from Airwaves:

Question is in the title.

Id like to know how long you have been trying to make money though daytrading, and how much money you've spent on coaching/seminars/software/BLOWN ACCOUNTS etc.....

I've been trying to trade for about 4 years.
I lived off savings so that i could dedicate about 14 hours per weekday (and some at teh weekends) to reading / studying / demo trading and live trading.
I've blownup everytime.
Initially the blowups were due to not using stops. Id put about £1000 into an account, turn it into about £5000 and then lose it all when a market moved relentlessly against me.

I then began using stops, although that has been even worse really, because the account never really gets off the ground. Just slowly bleeds money.

I blew a small account yesterday when the GBP/USD just kept crashing.

Its amazing. Everytime I've blown an account, THAT marks the low of that market for a very good run. I got stopped on a long at 1.4800 on GBPUSD. As a result it has moved up 70 pips since and will surely go another 500 or so. It always happens like this.

Its like the market can tell at what point my account will blow and aims for it and then reverses! lol. Am I the unluckiest person in the world or does this happen to all losing traders (particularly your blowout point marking a swing low/high)
Its happened everytime! Lets see if 1.4800 or so marks a decent low.

Obviously I should give up. It just seems such a shame considering the years ive put in.
Im not even entirerly sure that its possible to make money consistently. With such a high failure rate (95%) thoses few winning traders could just be lucky? You might expect similar odds from the roulette wheel?

I do believe that people can make money trading if they either work for a firm and are privvy to certain information, or if you are already absolutely LOADED and can just keep avergaing down in things like index futures that tend to go up over time.

So, other losing traders:
How much money (accounts/seminars etc) spent? Ive probably spent about £8000 all on blown accounts. Never paid for a seminar etc
Time??? About 4 years here
(oh...and watch gbpusd fly up over the coming weeks!!)

thanks
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You included lost time.
Lost time is actually more important than money.

You can always get money back,
not so with time.
 
Quote from cstfx:

Plenty of people make money trading forex (cash and futures). Sorry to hear you don't have the capacity to figure it out.
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Have not tried except hedging cash inflows. So why do you assume i don't have the capacity to figure it out? Ponzi scheme is a scam too some people make money on it too, it dosn't make it is any less of a scam. Just ask Madoff investors.
 
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